Recently, I have had the pleasure of introducing three children to the world of Sailor Moon. All three of them became hooked to the point that I would be surrounded by them as soon as I would walk in the door by three pleading faces.

"What?" I would ask.

"Did you bring Sailor Moon?"

Often, this request would come before even a single greeting. The addiction to the Sailors became such that the children would spend as much time as they were allowed in front of the television...forsaking the outside world, and homework, etc...until the other adults in the house would order the TV turned off. It got so bad that the two girls started to mimic the gestures required to activate Sailor Moon's powers, and they often chimed in with the various command phrases. The most annoying of all of this came in the S season where I'd hear three voices go: "Please Pegasus, protect peoples' dreams!" Of course, only one of the voices would be coming from the television...

While marvelling at the addictive quality of Sailor Moon, I started to think back at my own childhood, and the inevitable encounter with cartoons. No matter what parents do, their children WILL run into cartoons. My mother told me shortly after my brother Kyle discovered the television that he would only watch Disney stuff and that he would stay away from all of the Warner Brothers fare and the other cult fads that would flash across the consciousness of the children...

Then came Barney...

Then came the Power Rangers...

After that, Kyle became a willing convert to the marvels of the cartoon world.

After I graduated from Sesame Street, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, the Electric Company, and the ORIGINAL Zoom (which was a lot more like Sesame Street at that time), and after I had seen almost every Warner Brothers cartoon about 50 times, I got into the heroic cartoons such as The Superfriends, GI Joe, He Man, and the anime that was around at the time...Battle of the Planets, and later, Voltron, Robotech, and others...

Basically, I think the difference between the 80s and now is that there is an incredible amount of stuff to choose from. You can watch the oldies but goodies...in fact, the Warner Brothers has their own network...but you can watch more "adult" cartoons, such as Ren & Stimpy, Cow & Chicken, and believe it or not, the Powerpuff Girls, as well as tons and tons of anime.

I am still working on a second part to this editorial, where I will compare heroes like Batman and Superman to Sailor Moon. For now, use the reading of this editorial to reflect on the cartoon world as it is now, and if you are an adult, reflect on how this world has changed since you were a kid.

Artemis

(comments welcome - please email me at lunahq@yahoo.com and I will post your comments here as well.)